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[TerryDactyl]

I've miniaturized the cart-based power converter, reducing it in size at the expense of a little power.

█a↓
Pa^
█a↑

   
where P is power source
a are each gear assemblies
arrows represent rollers and direction of force
^ represents a pressure plate.

There is, of course, NS track along the rightmost column.

Be careful priming this machine. I'm not entirely sure, but I doubt it should be loaded in the active state.

Delay is ~10 ticks to trigger the plate. I'm using it as a not-gate for the hatch that shields haulers picking up materials from the dropshaft.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I've had a go at a 'MIRV minecart'. That is, a lead minecart containing three lead minecarts, each of them filled with galena. I let this one descend 24 ramps and then collide with a series of fortification rings. Different carts did indeed release their payload of ore at different layers of the fortifications, with some randomness over several attempts.

Tested and verified "Cartception"/"Yo Dawg"/Cart-in-cart-in-cart-in-cart-... in the arena.

Carts are discharged from parent carts like items, but then immediately begin acting like carts again. If three carts come out of one parent cart, they tend to collide with eachother and only one shoots forwards.

If you nest single carts "Matryoshka doll" style, then each time the cart hits an obstacle, it launches the child cart (containing the remainder of the stack) onto the next z-level above. I was able to shoot carts over the pyramid in the arena this way. If the cartstack hits the side of a multiple z-level building at sufficient speed, it will unstack at a rate of 1 z-level per tick until it runs out of carts or the surplus carts can shoot over the building. If the cartstack hits the edge of the map, it will completely unstack and climb as high as it possibly can.

Further testing revealed that this happens with other tool containers (can't easily test non-tool containers in the arena). A large pot was filled with daggers by hand and placed into a minecart. The minecart was then launched at a 2z high wall. The minecart hit the wall at ground level and discharged the pot on the level above. The pot hit the wall on its z-level, and discharged the daggers over the wall. The daggers shotgun-flew out and got a kill on a carefully-placed goblin.

We have yet to test caged animal projectiles. I wonder if they would be released and shot out? Will we get a heavy-cage-full-of-elephants projectile, or a kitten shotgun? If that worked, would we call it "live ammunition"?

[Martin]

Those can be loaded from above - push a cart in from 1z up.

[The Grackle]

...
I'm using it as a not-gate for the hatch that shields haulers picking up materials from the dropshaft.

How does that work?

[rhesusmacabre]

I've miniaturized the cart-based power converter, reducing it in size at the expense of a little power.

If you add an extra blank track tile in the middle, set the rollers to have one powered when the other isn't, and add an extra cart, you can avoid having to have a moving cart when functioning. This might save a bit of FPS (but then it might not).

Another alternative is to use a short spiral track:

##   _(#=wall)
╔║
╚╝

with a pressure plate and roller built on top:

##
^╢☼P   _{(roller accelerates west here)}
╚╝

Both bits of wall are important or else the cart will fly off.

[backora900]

Has anyone found out if it is possible to use minecarts as sorting device?
What I mean is tat you use stockpile that collect everything -> loads it on cart -> cart goes along different workshops and drops only somethig from its content (preferably without stopping at each drop).
Or does it always have to drop everything?

I haven't found a way how to force dwarfs unload minecarts by hands. It has to be placed on track stop with dump enabled. Or did I missed something?

[SmileyMan]

Just a thought, but does the minecart shotgun work with corpses, or even just refuse in general?

Having carts full of rubbish ready to fire at the enemy gets rid of the retreival problem, plus the idea of a goblin being killed by a flying goblin limb is just too lovely to ignore.

I would test it myself, but my current fort is being used to develop a double-helix elevator system...

[rhesusmacabre]

Has anyone found out if it is possible to use minecarts as sorting device?
What I mean is tat you use stockpile that collect everything -> loads it on cart -> cart goes along different workshops and drops only somethig from its content (preferably without stopping at each drop).
Or does it always have to drop everything?

I haven't found a way how to force dwarfs unload minecarts by hands. It has to be placed on track stop with dump enabled. Or did I missed something?

If you set a friction stop to dump, all the contents will be dumped.

To unload by hand you need to tell the route destination stop to [g]ive to a stockpile. You can also set the stop to retain particular item types on the cart, which would allow for a sorting system.

Just a thought, but does the minecart shotgun work with corpses, or even just refuse in general?

Anything that can be loaded onto a cart can be shotgunned.

[SmileyMan]

Hmmm, magma-safe tracks and carts + corpse stockpile = dwarven crematorium?

[EvilTwin]

Hmmm, magma-safe tracks and carts + corpse stockpile = dwarven crematorium?

You could even make a fully-automatic and very awesome obsidian burial now:

1) Dig a long shaft straight down.
2) Have minecarts drive by dumping corpse - water - magma in that order down the shaft. Probably use pressure plates to queue them in the right order.
3) When the obsidian reaches the top of the shaft, dig it all out and engrave it, preferably with images of cheese and kittens.

[Burmalay]

Has anyone found out if it is possible to use minecarts as sorting device?
What I mean is tat you use stockpile that collect everything -> loads it on cart -> cart goes along different workshops and drops only somethig from its content (preferably without stopping at each drop).
Or does it always have to drop everything?

I haven't found a way how to force dwarfs unload minecarts by hands. It has to be placed on track stop with dump enabled. Or did I missed something?

Now we can use our own zombie for war with the goblins (if zombie will attack them, will they?).
Build your fortress at the "normal" territory and while siege, shoot corpses to the "evil" territory to raise them.
If zombie and goblins are the enemy, we can use this fun thing =)
BTW, with the same way you can build archery. Dig a hole and assign to train squad above this hole where you will drop zombies. This training area must be in the evil area to make zombies raise every time they ware killed.

[Martin]

If you set a friction stop to dump, all the contents will be dumped.

Yeah, and the friction settings may be bugged. In my testing, 'highest' works, and the others do very little to nothing.


But I do have minecarts sorting, just not through dumping. The 'prefers' settings and stockpile links allow a cart full of a zillion things to get loaded/unloaded with some accuracy. I'm still trying to work out how to get the first 'load' stop to not completely fill the cart. The 'push when 25% full' doesn't necessarily work because those settings don't talk to the job system, so if the cart can take 10 bins before full, but only 3 bins would satisfy the departure rule, the job system will queue up 10 hauling jobs. Once the 3rd bin goes in, the push job will be created, but the other 7 hauling jobs may complete before the push job gets executed. I'm experimenting a bit with limiting the size of the input stockpiles to prevent that, but it's fidgety.


That said, you can do some cart sorting based on the contents using the rules and T or X junctions. You can set a rule to push east if the cart is >50% stone and west if the cart is <50% stone, that kind of thing. It's not super-flexible, but with a dwarf assigned to the stop via burrows, I think the system would be faster than sorting without carts if set up right.

[Techhead]

I've miniaturized the cart-based power converter, reducing it in size at the expense of a little power.

█a↓
Pa^
█a↑

   
where P is power source
a are each gear assemblies
arrows represent rollers and direction of force
^ represents a pressure plate.

There is, of course, NS track along the rightmost column.

Be careful priming this machine. I'm not entirely sure, but I doubt it should be loaded in the active state.

Delay is ~10 ticks to trigger the plate. I'm using it as a not-gate for the hatch that shields haulers picking up materials from the dropshaft.

I think you can save a bit of power if the center gear assembly is replaced with an axle.

[TerryDactyl]

I think you can save a bit of power if the center gear assembly is replaced with an axle.

Yeah, you're right. Move the power source to the corner and stick an axle in there. Also, try that thing with the loop.

[AWdeV]

Bluddy heck. I've got a nice secluded spot so I can learn how to work tracks and minecarts (and to play a bit of Rollercoaster Tycoon) but I've always been daunted by power and the like and can't figure out how to link my windmill (which is turning) to my roller.